LA cancels pride parade in favor of protest march

Once upon a time, Pride “Parades” everywhere were called “Pride Marches” and were seen as protests. Then, at some point they got transformed into outdoor parties.

The organization behind Los Angeles‘s pride has announced that the parade will be replaced by a resistance march. Christopher Street West (CSW), the organization behind LA Pride, is replacing the annual Pride Parade with a Resist March on June 11th, which falls on the same day replacing the parade.

The event is expected to draw around half a million attendees and will start as several different marches that feed into a larger one going down Santa Monica Boulevard. 8600 people have already said they are going on the Facebook event page for the march. The idea started in late January after the National Pride March was scheduled for June 11 in DC. One of the pride’s organizers posted on Facebook, “Floats and marching bands are nice when we are not at war. Now is the time we shake things up and take to the streets.”

“We want to resist apathy,” Pendleton told Queerty. “We want to resist having our rights rolled back by an unenlightened administration. And we want to be all-inclusive. We want to make sure that it’s everyone in the rainbow spectrum out there being represented.”

The Resist March is similar to the Women’s March where on the Facebook page it states:

When any American’s rights are under threat, all our rights are threatened. We are LGBTQ+. We are people of color. We are people of different faiths. We are people of all genders and no gender. We are immigrants. We are dreamers. We are people with disabilities. We are parents. We are allies. And we are beautiful intersections of these. But most of all, we are American. Yet our rights are in jeopardy. Forces are gathering in government that intend to take away our hard-won basic human rights.

We are calling on everyone to peacefully march with us on June 11th from Hollywood and Highland to West Hollywood. Instead of a Pride Parade meant to celebrate our past progress, we are going to march to ensure all our futures. Just as we did in 1970’s first LGBTQ+ Pride, we are going to march in unity with those who believe that America’s strength is its diversity. Not just LGBTQ+ people but all Americans and dreamers will be wrapped in the Rainbow Flag and our unique, diverse, intersectional voices will come together in one harmonized proclamation.
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We #RESIST forces that would divide us.

We #RESIST those who would take our liberty.

We #RESIST homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and racism.

Together we #RESIST

The pride festival will still occur and will likely be a ticketed event as it has been in past years, occurring on June 10 and 11. The festival will be smaller than it has been in past years because of construction work in parts of West Hollywood Park. The festival will likely have only one entertainment stage instead of the three they had last year.

There will also still be dance parties thrown around the march as if they were having a parade by circuit party promoters such as Masterbeat where they throw three or so all-night dance events. So no need to worry you will not be able to dance and let out your political frustrations as well as participate in the marching!